Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Functional advantages and benefits of LEDs include high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, lower operating costs, and many others. Recent advances in LED technology have provided efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects in many applications.
A plurality of LED-based lighting units may be installed in a location such as a store or airport. Each LED-based lighting unit may be illuminated to emit light that conveys a coded light signal carrying data associable with a location (e.g., coordinates within a store, “Aisle 3,” etc.). These coded light signals may be detected by light sensors (e.g., cameras) of mobile computing devices such as smart phones, which may use the location data for various purposes, such as navigating a shopper through a store. However, viewing angles of smart phone cameras may be small. Without deploying numerous LED-based lighting units, a smart phone may not always be able to detect one of the LED-based lighting units. Further, replacing existing lighting installations with LED-based lighting units configured to emit coded light signals may require significant investment. Moreover, unless the plurality of LED-based lighting units are centrally-controlled, it may be labor intensive and/or time consuming to alter coded light signals emitted by the plurality of LED-based lighting units. Thus, there is a need in the art for a more economical, simpler and more easily controllable way to provide locational data by way of emission of one or more coded light signals.